2.5 million children in Britain are living with a ‘hazardous drinker’. Here,
five women talk to Julia Llewellyn Smith about their childhood’s
spent with an alcoholic mother

Giselle Mannering’s memories of childhood summer holidays are not exactly from the pages of Enid Blyton. ‘I’d wake and it would be sunny. Mum would be quite normal in the mornings, so I was always optimistic. I’d think: “Great, what’s the day going to hold?”’ she recalls. But as the day went on things invariably deteriorated.

‘Mum would go from compos mentis to incoherent and aggressive. By evening she’d be slurring unintelligibly and ranting. She’d shoo us out of the kitchen, saying there was no room, but really it was because she wanted to take a sip of gin.’

Mannering is now 47, glamorous, well spoken – an interior designer from Tunbridge Wells, Kent. She looks so together that it's hard to imagine her hiding any trauma.

‘I remember once,’ says Mannering, ‘when I was about 11 years old, seeing Mum leaning on the front door for support. I can still hear myself shaking her and shouting: “What the hell are you doing to yourself? You can’t even stand up.”’

Women like Mannering are everywhere. A report last year for the Children’s Commissioner suggested that at least 2.5 million children in Britain – including 90,000 babies – are living with a ‘hazardous drinker’, defined as someone whose alcoholic intake could have a harmful effect on themselves or others.

Campaigners suspect the true figure is higher, obscured by a society where drinking to excess is commonplace. ‘There’s so much acceptance around alcohol misuse,’ says Emma Spiegler, 29, whose mother is a recovered alcoholic.

‘No one comes into work saying: “I was high on heroin all weekend,” but it’s fine to say you had a terrible hangover.’ Yet at the same time no one has sympathy for a parent who puts the bottle before their children.

‘The stigma is terrible,’ Spiegler continues. ‘Young people don’t really want to say that their parent – especially a mother – has a problem, because people think it’s the parent’s choice to drink and they just need to pull their socks up. They don’t understand how complex addiction is.’

Four years ago Spiegler, who knew how lonely it was to be the child of an alcoholic, founded the online forum Children of Addicted Parents (COAP).

It receives 25,000 visitors a month from children who can find no other outlets for their feelings. ‘Children of alcoholics are very confused, torn between love and hate,’ she says.

‘They long to escape but they also want to be right next to the person who is causing all the pain. It’s unthinkable even to call a helpline, because they don’t want to get their parents into trouble. They feel if they went to a teacher and said, “My Mum’s drinking,” they’d be saying she’s an awful person, and no child wants to do that.’

If alcoholic parents are overlooked, in general, then even less attention is paid to alcoholic mothers. ‘People can’t believe mothers can be alcoholics; it goes against everything a mother should be,’ Spiegler says.

‘Alcoholics are selfish and manipulative, but mothers are supposed to put their needs aside, so people say: “She’s got three kids, for goodness’ sake. If she can’t sort herself out she’s a waste of space.”’ But a recent report by the charity 4 Children showed that 29 per cent of mothers were drinking more than the recommended number of units every week.

Women from managerial or professional backgrounds were especially at risk, with 19 per cent more likely to drink heavily at home.

‘Your mum is the one person who is supposed always to be there for you, but mine just wasn’t,’ says Caroline Humphrey, a 20-year-old student at Nottingham University, whose mother drank throughout her childhood, but is now in recovery.

Humphrey, who was diagnosed with severe depression shortly after she started university, says the word that sums up her childhood is ‘disappointment’. ‘I was constantly let down and it was heartbreaking.

I remember friends’ mums having to pick us up from school because she was too drunk to come herself. Every single time I’d be thinking: “Why don’t you love me enough to stop?”’

Hers was a chaotic childhood, with routines constantly disrupted and promises to stop drinking broken. The long-term effect on such children is often devastating. They grow into adults with low self-esteem, who feel they have no control over their own lives. They can struggle to develop strong personal relationships.

A 2006 report by the Priory Group of addiction clinics described how such people often grew into seemingly composed and confident adults, as a result of having made it through a turbulent childhood.

But, the report warned, their feelings about themselves were usually the opposite of their serene public image: ‘They generally feel insecure, inadequate, dull, unsuccessful, vulnerable and anxious.’ Recent research by Yale University showed that daughters of alcoholic mothers (as opposed to fathers), were significantly more likely than sons to need future psychiatric care because of the lack of a female role model when growing up.

Susan Blake was 10 when she realised her mother was an alcoholic, after her mother sat on a teacher’s lap after a school play and was asked to leave by the headmaster. From that point, until she went to university, Blake made herself as self-sufficient as possible, pretending her mother was her landlady.

‘I grew up to be a very angry young woman, who trusted nobody,’ she recalls. ‘I’d have boyfriends and friends but then almost invent rows so we fell out. I wanted to cut myself off from people so I retained control.’

Repeated studies have shown that 70 per cent of alcoholics’ children develop compulsive behaviour around alcohol, drugs, food, sex, work or gambling. Half of them end up marrying alcoholics.

Blake, now 44, began drinking with her friends when she was in her mid-teens.

‘I resisted for a while, but it was hard when they were obviously having fun. I was a shy teenager, largely because my shame about my mother made me withdraw, but alcohol gave me rare confidence.’

This drinking continued throughout her twenties, when she was holding down a prestigious job in television. ‘The only times I let myself go and allowed myself to enjoy myself was when I was drunk. My mother was becoming more infirm and dependent on me as she got older, so – ironically – I also used booze as a way to help me cope with her.

‘Occasionally I’d compare my drinking to Mum’s, but I told myself that, unlike her, I could stop any time, even after a night when I passed out from too much vodka and woke up in a police cell. It was the only way I knew how to tackle life.’

Blake cut down on drinking slightly when she met her husband, and stopped when she became pregnant six years ago. ‘But when I stopped breastfeeding at four months I went out ON a huge bender,’ she recalls.

‘I’d really missed drinking and really felt the urge to lose myself in the booze. But in the morning, my daughter woke me crying and I heard myself snarling at her. My head hurt and she suddenly seemed an intolerable burden. It was a horrible eye-opener.

I recalled how tetchy Mum had always been with my siblings and me, how we seemed to be ruining her fun. The thought of becoming that person was terrifying.’

She hasn’t drunk alcohol since.

Blake still sees her mother intermittently, but many daughters find the only way to cope is to cut all contact. Spiegler explains that one of the hardest things for a child to come to terms with is that no one but the alcoholic can fix their situation.

‘It’s human nature to think, “What can I do to cure the person I love? I have got to make her happy.” But until the mother herself realises she has a problem, there’s nothing anyone else can do. You can only look after yourself, so you’re not going down the escalator to the basement together.’

Natalie Peters, 26, from Stoke-on-Trent, who works in local government, could never remember a time when her mother wasn’t drunk and aggressive.

‘She just wasn’t a nice person to be around; she’d start off a bit snappy but then become very loud and in your face, talking nonsense, shouting at you for no reason. She took a swipe at me more than once. ‘I couldn’t afford to move out but as a teenager, I distanced myself as much as possible. But then when I was 22, she tried to punch me in the face and broke my glasses.’

After that, Peters moved in with her boyfriend and has now not spoken to her mother for more than a year. ‘People with normal families don’t understand how you can cut your mother out of your life, but my life since has been so much better. There’s no more stress of, “Oh God, what’s Mum up to now? What kind of trouble is she in?’’’

Does she love her mother? ‘I’m not sure love’s the right word. I know that you should love your parents, but it’s a two-way thing and towards the end she wasn’t showing any love to me; she wanted me to suffer.’

Mannering’s father walked out on his family when she was 11, unable to cope.

‘I can understand why he left, Mum drove him away, but I can’t forgive him for leaving us to cope alone. I felt so annoyed and so angry about seeing the only adult I could depend on walk away. Ultimately we should have been in care.’

Now she and her father are rebuilding their relationship. ‘But it will take a long time. It’s so emotional when we talk.’

She left home at the age of 17, after her mother attacked her with a plank. She went to art college, but was unable to lead a carefree student life as she was constantly on the telephone, counselling her increasingly confused and vulnerable mother.

In February 1987, during a visit home, Mannering returned from a night out to find her mother slumped at the foot of the stairs. ‘I knew instantly that she was dead. I felt so many things: guilt that I hadn’t done more to protect her; sadness that this horrible story had ended this way; but also very strong relief that it was all – finally – over.’

The Priory report showed that children of alcoholics respond to their circumstances in one of three ways: by becoming withdrawn; going into denial; or using the experience to ‘benefit themselves’. Mannering falls into the final category.

‘The feeling of helplessness I had as a child, the feeling of being trapped, with no one to turn to, is what turned me into such a driven adult,’ she says. ‘I always thought I had to better myself, to have my own income and independence.’

Mannering met her husband Robert, who is 18 years older than her, when she was 22. She admits the age difference attracted her, as she was looking for someone dependable. Their daughter, Frederique, is 12, and Mannering – who also volunteers as a mentor for COAP – is determined to provide her with the childhood she never had.

‘When my daughter experiences a milestone, I want the spotlight to be on her, because I grew up in a home where the person with the problem soaked up all the attention. Everybody focuses on the alcoholic, but it isn’t just about them. They leave a trail of destruction behind them that impacts everyone.’